Katie

This is Katie.

Katie's much too busy to have a proper photograph taken.

She's trapped a chipmunk in this "pipe" thingy.

She worked on getting it out for most of the morning.

I think the chipmunk was laughing from a safe vantage point somewhere near his back door.

Katie's a funny dog. More funny neurotic, not so funny hahaha. Watching her dig for this chipmunk was amusing though.

One of the "funny" things about her is that she's afraid of gun shots and fire works, and anything else that sounds remotely like either. Recently she decided that thunder fits in that category. Usually she runs to the house as fast as she can when she hears one of those scary noises. This summer she decided that fire works were actually things to chase, even though she's terrified. That seems strange to me, but it's true. When she's finally finished chasing them, she runs inside and hides in the basement or her bed.
One evening a couple of weeks ago, Katie was asking to go out. It was around 10:30 PM. She ran out the door, hackles up, and started to growl and bark. She ran to the barn and back growling and barking furiously. Just then I heard a sound like something heavy and metal falling or being knocked over (I thought). I told Dan that Katie was really mad at something that was outside. I was sure there was something there that wasn't supposed to be. Dan then thought he heard a gun shot. He decided that whatever it was that was out there had just been shot at by a neighbor. He got on his bicycle to find out what it was, and my sister and 12 yo daughter followed him. The girls started to get a bit scared as they were heading down the neighbor's long driveway because everything was so quiet except for Dan's whistling. As Dan approached their house he called out, "J______! J______ ?!" Just then the other neighbors shot off some more fire works. Needless to say, the trio of curious folks headed to neighbor number one's house quietly turned around and came home. Katie was busy thinking she was chasing the fireworks out of our yard. When they all got back to the house we had a good laugh! But Katie hid in her bed, completely tired out from all her hard work defending us from the big bad fire crackers!

She also chases large birds "out of our yard" as they fly over. The birds are just minding their own business. They certainly don't think they're being chased, but Katie is so pleased with herself when she's "chased" them to the edge of our property. I do feel that the chickens are safe from any large birds who might be hunting them with Katie out there though.

The cool thing about Katie (well, one of them anyway) is that she's never chased any of the chickens. She has occasionally helped us herd them. She's even herded them on her own on occasion. At one point she decided that they shouldn't go onto the drive way, so she would herd them back into the grass whenever they did.
A couple of years ago we had our chickens free ranging and they decided they'd rather lay their eggs in the raspberries than the nest boxes. Once in a while Katie would come to us with an egg in her mouth and gently lay it at our feet. She never broke any, and she would even show us where they were!

Now that's a cool dog! "Funny", yes, but way cool!